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Booker, Lonegan Win New Jersey Senate Primaries

New Jersey voters are about to witness a two-month sprint for an open U.S. Senate seat that will feature a heavily favored national media darling fending off a conservative provocateur with sharp barbs and little to lose.

August 14, 2013

New Jersey voters are about to witness a two-month sprint for an open U.S. Senate seat that will feature a heavily favored national media darling fending off a conservative provocateur with sharp barbs and little to lose.

The upcoming political spectacle — rare even by Garden State standards — was set up Tuesday when Democratic Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Republican conservative activist Steve Lonegan scored easy primary victories in the battle for the late Frank Lautenberg’s seat.

In the race to the Oct. 16 special Senate election, don’t expect to hear about swing voters and other political nuances once Lonegan, a former mayor of Bogota, tries to reverse the seeming inevitability of a Booker victory.

Lonegan, who until recently headed the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, will make the race a referendum on President Obama and won’t shy away from views on global warming, health care reform, immigration and guns more often heard from red-state Republicans.